Russian election interference efforts focus on the Harris-Walz campaign
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/09/17/russian-election-interference-efforts-focus-on-the-harris-walz-campaign/
Russian hacker groups (Storm-1516 & Storm-1679) created two videos which are the brunt of the story:
Storm-1516, identified by news reports as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm, produced and disseminated
two inauthentic videos, each generating millions of views.
One video depicted an attack by alleged Harris supporters on a supposed Trump rally attendee,
while another used an on-screen actor to fabricate false claims about Harriss involvement in a hit-and-run accident. This second video was laundered through a website masquerading as a local San Francisco media outlet which was only created days beforehand.
Storm-1679, a newer group reportedly aligned with the Kremlin, pivoted its focus from producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to publishing false videos discrediting Vice President Harris.
One of the videos, which was shared on X shortly after it was published to Telegram, depicted a fake New York City billboard advancing false claims about Harris policies. The X post received more than 100,000 views in the four hours after it was published on Telegram.